Dolly Creator May Clone Human Embryos

W A S H I N G T O N,   Jan. 22 -- The Scottish scientist who created Dolly the sheep is trying to launch a project that would apply the technique to cloning human embryos.

A spokesman for the Roslin Institute in Scotland told the Wall Street Journal on Thursday that the scientist, Dr. Ian Wilmut, is in talks with several biotechnology companies, including Geron Corp. of Menlo Park, Calif. Wilmut also is contacting universities to aid in an embryo-cloning project, the Journal said.

The embryos could serve as a source of stem cells, the very early cells that can develop into any kind of cell in the body, the Journal said. Scientists say stem cell research has the potential to treat and even cure diseases ranging from juvenile diabetes to Parkinson’s disease.

The project would be controversial because of the ethical questions surrounding human cloning and the creation of human embryos.

Controversial ‘Stem Cell’ Research

This week, the National Institutes of Health decided to allow federal funding for research on stem cells from human embryos. But the agency said public money cannot be used to actually grow the cells.

Geron sponsored ground-breaking research in growing stem cells, the Journal said, and the company is in talks with “dozens” of collaborators around the world to pursue various aspects of its research.

Wilmut’s research “may prove to be complementary here and serve to address one very big problem,” Thomas Okarma, vice president of research and development for Geron, told the Journal.

But the company still is opposed to “reproductive cloning” that would result in the birth of a live cloned human, the Journal said.